Google Latitude is a service that lets you see where your friends are on a map in real-time. But if your friends haven’t turned on the feature in a while you end up looking at list of stale locations where your friends were last week or 6 months ago. The new check-ins add a little spice to that list by letting Latitude not just track your physical location, but also whether you went to a restaurant, bar, coffee shop, movie theater, or other business.

One of the cool features in the way Google Latitude handles check-ins is that the app is constantly tracking your location anyway, so it can automatically check you out when you leave a location.

Google Latitude for iOS is available as a free download for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch, and the iPad. You’ll need a 3G capable device to use the background updating feature.